Do you ever have trouble working out who is who, how all the birds are related or who lives where? Then read on. All your questions will be answered!

03(97)

A male translocated to Rutland Water from Scotland in 1997. Returned to Rutland for the first time in 1999 and successfully bred in 2001 at Site B, a nest on private land. The first Osprey to breed in Central England for 150 years. He has produced 24 chicks over the last 10 years with three different females. This year, he arrived on March 19th, exactly the same date as the previous two years. 03 has been breeding with an unringed Scottish female since 2009.

03(97)

08(97)

A male translocated to Rutland Water from Scotland in 1997. He was the first translocated Osprey to return to Rutland in May 1999. Despite attracting at least eight different females to his nest in Manton Bay, he didn’t breed until 2007 when he raised two chicks with 5N(04) (see below). After their nest failed in 2008 the pair moved to a site on private land, Site N, and raised two chicks in 2009 and 2010. Sadly 08 disappeared in May 2011.

08(97) and 5N(04)

09(98)

A male translocated to Rutland Water from Scotland in 1998. He returned to Rutland for the first time in 2000 but he is yet to breed. After 08(97) disappeared in May 2011, he paired up with 5N(04) (see below) and spent the rest of the Summer at Site N. Before the end of the season he was fitted with a satellite transmitter so we have been able to track his Autumn and Spring migrations.

09(98) with his satellite transmitter

AW(06)

AW fledged from Site B in 2006 and he is one of 03(97)’s chicks. He returned to Rutland in 2008 and bred for the first time in 2010, at a site on private land with a Scottish female from Argyll. He has raised six chicks in two years. AW was also fitted with a satellite transmitter last season and we were able to follow his Autumn migration. Unfortunately we stopped receiving data from his transmitter in mid-February.

AW(06)

5R(04)

5R fledged from Site B in 2004 and he is one of 03(97)’s chicks. In 2010, 5R bred in Manton Bay with an unringed Scottish female and this was the first pair in Rutland not to include a translocated bird. In two years this pair have produced six chicks. 5R is the male Osprey you can watch on the webcam since he arrived on March 19, a week earlier than in 2011. His mate returned on April 1st and they are currently incubating three eggs.

5R(04) and unringed Scottish female

5N(04)

5N fledged from Site B in 2004. She is one of 03(97)’s chicks and 5R’s sister from the same year. 5N paired up with 08(97) in 2007 and she was the first Rutland-fledged chick to breed and has successfully raised six chicks. After 08(97)’s disappearance in May 2011 she paired up with 09(98) and spent the rest of the Summer at her nest, Site N. 5N returned this year on March 25th and has spent her first few days in Manton Bay. She is now settled at Site N with 09(98).

00(09)

00 fledged from Site B in 2009. She is one of 03(97)’s chicks and 5R’s half-sister. She returned to Rutland for the first time on May 4th 2011 and spent very little time in Rutland. This year she returned on March 23rd and has spent most of her time in Manton Bay. Her early arrival suggests that she is ready to breed and is looking for a mate. The video below shows 00 with 5R on the Manton Bay nest after she arrived on March 23rd.

03(09)

03 fledged from Site N in 2009 and he is one of 08(97)’s chicks. He returned for the first time on June 15th 2011. 03 returned in early May and as a three year old, he his unlikely to breed this year.

03(09)

06(09)

06 fledged from a nest on private land in 2009. He returned for the first time on June 11th 2011. 06 returned in early May and as a three year old, he his unlikely to breed this year.

06(09)

03(08)

03(08) fledged from Site B in 2008 and she is one of 03(97)’s chicks. She is the sister of 5R and 5N from a different year. On April 12th 2011, 03(08) was seen on the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust’s Cors Dyfi reserve in mid-Wales. She stayed there for the whole season and raised three chicks with the resident male and was nicknamed Nora. They were the first Ospreys to breed in the Dyfi valley for 400 years. Since then she has become a celebrity on Springwatch and Autumnwatch. This year she returned to Dyfi on March 24th.

03(08) ‘Nora’

In the early years of the Project, 64 Osprey chicks were translocated to Rutland Water from Scotland between 1996 and 2001. From the very beginning, the Ospreys were identified by their ring numbers because it was easier than giving them all names. Since the first pair bred in 2001, 53 chicks have fledged from nests in Rutland and the ring numbers continue to be the way they are identified. Thinking of 117 names over the years would have been impossible.

Ospreys have been ringed in the UK for more than 50 years so the combinations of colours, letters and numbers are now fairly random because we are starting to run out and we can’t have two rings the same.

This post will be updated as and when other Ospreys return to Rutland. Hopefully it won’t get too confusing… A family tree will be on the way soon!

Thanks for this clarification. I think a family tree would be really helpful. I have always thought that giving the birds names as well as numbers would be a good idea. I can’t keep numbers in my head. My personal solution so far is to call 5R Fiver, 00 Oona and 5N Fivenne. It will be very interesting to see who finally finishes up as the reigning female on the Manton nest.

You must have read my mind! I was in the hide on Monday chatting to a lady and saying how I really needed to draw up a family tree to work out exactly who was who and she was agreeing with me. I happened to check your website on my phone while I was in the hide and lo and behold, your blog post appeared! Many thanks to everyone who contributes to making the site so useful for those of us who live too far away to visit as often as we’d like, and with the new HD cam, we can almost *be* there.